A team of Chinese scientists has found that the spread of cancer from original tumour sites to distant organs can be caused by chemotherapy triggering the awakening of dormant cancer cells.
Their findings shed light on why breast cancer patients can experience cancer metastasis in organs like the lungs despite successful treatment of their primary tumours.
The team also found that the use of specific drugs in combination with chemotherapy could be used to inhibit this process in mice, and a clinical trial is already under way in breast cancer patients.
“We demonstrate that chemotherapeutic drugs, including doxorubicin and cisplatin, enhance proliferation and lung metastasis of dormant breast cancer cells,” the team wrote in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cancer Cell on July 3.
“This study provides direct evidence of dormancy awakening and reveals a mechanism underlying [the] detrimental effect of chemotherapy on metastasis, highlighting potential strategies to improve cancer treatment.”
Researchers in the United States previously found that high doses of radiation therapy to treat cancer could paradoxically lead to the growth of metastatic tumours.
